


Silverfish

by preraphhobbit



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, House Stark, Winterfell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:50:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preraphhobbit/pseuds/preraphhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the darkness, the memories come back to haunt her, but he brings her comfort with his kindness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silverfish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KilisParasites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilisParasites/gifts).



> Drabble wherein Jon Snow teaches Arya Stark how to use a bow, peppered with slightly non-canon romance between Arya and Gendry (don't hate me). Set during their time with the Brotherhood Without Banners, post arrival of Sandor, pre arrival of Melisandre.

In the night the memories come, swimming down through the darkness around the stars like silverfish, wreathing and writhing. She sleeps with her hand clutched round a bow with a sheath of arrows nearby, back to back with Gendry. His body keeps her warm, his slow breath is soothing, and though she ought to be able to sleep she can't. The silverfish memories swarm all around her now, and she drowns in their murmured recollections.

She can think backwards, retracing her own history as though following a thread twisted through empty rooms of thought of time. Backwards through the Brotherhood, backwards through Harrenhall and Lord Tywin, backwards through the little Night's Watch caraven, backwards to King's Landing, to her father's headless body, and then beyond hurt- back, back, ceaselessly into the cold of Winterfell, to the summer snow and her mother's arms and her wee brothers and Robb and Sansa smiling again, and Jon Snow mussing up her hair.

Oh no, she thinks, clutching the bow, and suddenly she is small again, hair long, braided back, angry at the skirts that always tangled up around her skinny legs, angry at her skinny arms for never being able to hold a sword or a bow properly. She'd sitting embroidering sullenly with Sansa and Jeyne Poole until Septa Mordane went to fetch more thread or cloth or something, and then she'd put her embroidering on her stool, get up and march out, to the shrill chastisements of Sansa. "Arya!" she'd shriek. "Get back here!"

Arya never paid attention to Sansa. She slipped through the stone halls of Winterfell on soft slippered feet, went down through the kitchens, snitched an apple from the basket, and stepped out in the cool afternoon. In the yard she could hear Ser Rodrick bellowing, and the sharp crash of steel on steel as Robb and Theon practiced their swordsmanship. 

It had snowed a little that morning, but then the sun came out and it melted, turning the yard to a muddy mire that splashed onto her skirt and soaked her soft leather slippers through, but she walked and didn't care.

"You fight like a woman!" Ser Rodrick shouted- whether to Robb or to Theon she wasn't sure. The two brothers circled each other, chests heaving, boiled leather flapping against chainmail. Jon Snow leaned lazily against the wall, arms folded, watching and grinning in that funny way of his. She went up and leaned beside him, chewing her apple. He was their father's bastard, her half-brother, and she'd seen the sour looks her lady mother gave him whenever he passed by her, but Arya loved him as though they were full-blooded siblings. 

"How are they doing?" Arya asked.

"Pretty well." Jon looked down at her, smiling in that familiar way of his. 

"How did you do?"

"I shot targets today." He flexed his arm. 

"Did you do that well?"

"Hit the center a time or two."

"Wish I could." She scowled, took a final bite of her apple, and tossed the core away. "But Mother says I am too young, and that archery's not for girls anyway."

Jon scratched his jaw, half watching Robb and Theon out of the corner of his eye. "It's not so unladylike. It's not like swords. It's more elegant."

She seized the opportunity. "Teach me."

He laughed. "Teach you? Your lady mother would have my head."

"No she wouldn't. Not if I told her I forced you...and that's if she found out. Which she doesn't need to."

"Arya-"

"Jon..." She looked up at him, trying to affect the big weepy eyes Sansa always did so well. She knew it wouldn't work anyway, she wasn't pretty enough for that- not like Sansa and 

Mother were pretty- but pretty didn't matter much anyway if you could use a sword or a bow.

"You are only nine years old-"

"And you learned it when you were seven!"

"It's not the same."

"Please, Jon?"

He sighed and ruffled her hair like he always did. "Fine. Fine!"

He never did take much convincing.

Suddenly something moves, startling away the silverfish memories, and her hand shoots out, curling around the wood of her longbow and jerking it to her chest. Her eyes widen in the dark, staring out and up. She lays frozen, listening. Fear cuts deeper than swords.

Something stirs, against her back, and she jumps- and then she realizes it is only Gendry, shifting in his sleep. He always sleeps deeper than she. She pressed the bow to her chest and rolls over to face his slumped back, trying to memorize the rise and fall of his breath in an attempt to lull her to sleep. The back of his hair is mussed up against his scalp, wanting a comb or a hand to smooth it back. She might do it herself, but her hands are clutching the bow. The bow is more important. 

His chest goes up and then lowers again, his breath soft. It;s soothing to watch another person sleep, she thinks, even if sleep eludes her. She always longed for it now, craves it like a sick man craves death. Deep, dreamless sleep, devoid of memories, an escape. Instead she gets the silverfish, and back they come, stealing into her mind before she can stop them.


End file.
